Now, internet access in moving cars through Wi-Fi technology, BSNL does it first in Indore

BSNL’s Indore division has created a history of sorts on Wednesday by launching a wi-fi technology module through exchange based on CDMA technology to provide internet access to the people in moving cars.

BSNL Indore unit's General Manager G C Pandey who was the first to experience this in his official car said this technology module costs around Rs 5000 to Rs 6000.

He said that car with an antenna receives wi-fi signals with a 3.5 mbps speed, from an exchange based on CDMA technology.

BSNL is hopeful that once the module gets popular, it will attract customers in large numbers.

Incidentally, the Indian Railways also has successfully launched Wi-Fi- facility in Howrah Rajdhani Express connecting Howrah and New Delhi. This is the first time that India has introduced Wi-Fi facility in a moving train. 

Read More »

Mozilla Firefox gets updated, now with improved private browsing

Mozilla has unleashed the latest version of Firefox for desktop as well as Android devices and has incorporated a spate of improvements in the browser. The enhancements drawn in are directed towards privacy, downloads and developers.

Augmentations made to private browsing allow users to concurrently open up a new window, while their current sessions remain unclosed as well as uninterrupted. Consumers will even be able to sign in to and access several e-mail accounts at the same time. The security element is also deemed possible on devices based on the said platform, wherein it is carried out through tabs. Owners will be able to switch between tabs within a same session.

With the addition of a new and improved Download Manager located on the toolbar, users can easily find, check and keep a track of whatever they have saved. This can be accomplished without having to open up a new window. Check out the demonstration video embedded at the end for more clarity. As for the mobile browser, shortcuts can be tailored according to what websites consumers consider important or pages they frequent most often.

Developers will be glad to hear about increased levels of support for them, which includes getUserMedia to enable speedy as well as easy coding for programs intended to access cameras or microphones. In addition to this, a toolbox has been provided consisting of resources for coders. It also offers advice on easy methods to switch between various tools that they use. In terms of visual effects, Canvas Blend Modes permits them to personalize already existing images. They can give out instructions to guide Canvas around how they want the picture to look.

Back in September, the company had released a beta version for phones that contained ARMv6 processors. Now, it has finally introduced support for these chipsets which are present in devices like the Samsung Galaxy Next, HTC Aria and Legend amongst others. The tool even allows synchronization between desktops and mobiles, so that consumers don’t lose track of what they were surfing through.

Potential users can download Mozilla Firefox from the official website and those who want the browser present on their Android devices, can lay their hands on it through the Play store.

Read More »

Minimal impact of global internet slowdown on India: Kapil Sibal

Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal has said that there was minimal impact of global slowdown caused down by the massive cyber-attack (called "bazooka" attack) on spam-fighting company Spamhaus and the under-sea cable cuts on India.

Sibal told NDTV that the impact was limited to the BSNL services in the south and that too was in a small way. He said that there was no impact on north India. 

Allaying the fears arising out of these developments which caused great impact on Europe, Sibal did not feel the need to issue any advisory saying it is done if there is a long term impact. 

It all started when the Spamhaus Project which is an international organisation, based in both London and Geneva to track e-mail spammers and spam-related activity was attacked after it added a Dutch hosting organisation called Cyberbunker to its list of unwelcome internet sites.

Spamhaus said that it is the biggest attack ever it was subjected to. It said that many organizations are not open about the fact that they are attacked at all, let alone about techniques or traffic volumes used in the attack.

It said that that core internet infrastructure may be overwhelmed by the amount of traffic involved in an attack. When that happens, all traffic that passes through that part of the Internet is impacted. Compare it to a big highway: If a traffic jam gets big enough, the on-ramps will slow down and fill up, and then the roads to the on-ramps will fill up too.

Read More »

Internet emits 830 million tonnes of carbon dioxide

Internet and other components of information communication and technology (ICT) industry annually produces more than 830 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, and is expected to double by 2020, a new study has found.

Researchers from the Centre for Energy-Efficient Telecommunications (CEET) and Bell Labs explain that the information communications and technology (ICT) industry, which delivers Internet, video, voice and other cloud services, produces about 2 per cent of global CO2 emissions -- the same proportion as the aviation industry produces.

In the report published in journal Environmental Science & Technology, researchers said their projections suggest that ICT sector's share in greenhouse gas emission is expected to double by 2020.

They have also found new models of emissions and energy consumption that could help reduce their carbon footprint.

The study said that controlling those emissions requires more accurate but still feasible models, which take into account the data traffic, energy use and CO2 production in networks and other elements of the ICT industry.


Existing assessment models are inaccurate, so they set out to develop new approaches that better account for variations in equipment and other factors in the ICT industry.


They describe development and testing of two new models that better estimate the energy consumption and CO2 emissions of Internet and telecommunications services.


The researchers suggest, based on their models, that more efficient power usage of facilities, more efficient use of energy-efficient equipment and renewable energy sources are three keys to reducing ICT emissions of CO2.

Read More »

Mobile internet users to double by March'14: report

Mobile internet penetration is set to grow by 50 per cent by March 2014, according to a 'Mobile Internet Report' published by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB.

The report says India will have 130.6 million mobile internet users by March 2014. Going by last reported numbers, there were 87.1 million mobile internet users in India in December 2012.

 The same report stated that 78.7 million mobile users had accessed internet in the month of October 2012. These included laptops and tablets with data cards / dongles to connect to the internet.

Out of these, 61 million were off-deck users (accessing sites other than sites of the operator), 15 million on-deck (accessing only sites specified by the operator) and 2.7 million accessed internet using dongles (through 2G, 3G or high-speed data cards).

The report also found that the average monthly bill of a mobile internet user is Rs. 460. Of this, she/he spends Rs. 198 on internet. The rest is spent on voice services.

E-mail, social networking services (SNS) and messengers have high usage among mobile internet users, the report says. It further reveals that users accessed online videos, games or read online news approximately two to six times a week. Nearly 50 per cent mobile internet users accessed online games, while less than 30 per cent users read online news and watched online videos.

The IAMAI-IMRB survey for the this research report covered all the eight metros as well as 27 other cities across India, and nearly 21,000 households were interviewed before December 2012. The report has also extensively used the previous rounds of the I-Cube reports that have laid down the universe of the internet users in the country.

Read More »

Internet industry irked on India's support to web regulations at UN

India's supportive for International Telecom Union's proposals to a UN-backed body to regulate internet has irked the stakeholders in local internet industry, which has warned government to refrain from voting in ITU on issues other than telecom.

Earlier this month, ITU, a body under United Nations for the first time introduced proposals seeking to define spam, and cyber fraud in a way that would have brought the some aspects of regulating the 'international network' under its ambit. While India is yet to sign off on the proposals, the state's public posturing indicated a supportive stand.


"ITU should only focus on telecom sector and not get into information and communication technology as they have tried to do through the Dubai convention last week," said Subho Ray President of Internet and Mobile Association of India. IAMAI has Indian arms of multinational internet firms such as Ebay, Google, Facebook and Yahoo! as members.


The proposals have also created an international stand-off with US, UK and other large European economies rejecting the need for such UN-backed regulation of the internet, while Russia, China and United Arab Emirates found it useful to have such control. Some analysts have even called it the new cold war. 

Read More »

Internet grows to more than 246 million domain names

More than five million domain names were added to the Internet in the third quarter of 2012, bringing the total number of registered domain names as of September 30, 2012 to more than 246 million worldwide across all Top-Level Domains (TLDs), a report said Monday.

According to Domain Name Industry Brief, published by VeriSign Inc, a provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world, the increase of 5.7 million domain names globally equates to a growth rate of 2.4 percent over the second quarter of 2012, and marks the seventh straight quarter with greater than two percent growth.


"Worldwide registrations have grown by 26.4 million, or 12 percent, since the third quarter of 2011", a VeriSign statement said.


The .com and .net TLDs experienced aggregate growth in the third quarter of 2012, reaching a combined total of 119.9 million domain names in the adjusted zone for .com and .net.


This represents 1 percent increase in the base over the second quarter of 2012 and a 7.1 percent increase over the third quarter of 2011.

Read More »